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First Flights: Thoughts About The Spark

Join
Nov 30, 2017
Messages
18
Loc
Highlands Ranch, CO
Today, over a month after I bought my Spark, I FINALLY got out and flew it. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about this little drone after the first outing, both the likes (which are many) and dislikes (just a few).

First, I had no problems with setup, doing the many updates that have come out over the past month and a half, and so on. Activation was fast and easy as well. Now you have to understand that I am one of those people who does RTFM (read the f**king manual), so that gave me a lot of good background. I think there are a lot of folks who pull the Spark out of the box and try to fly it immediately, then wonder why they have issues...

I was using my “backup” battery pack for my first flight and knew I would need to do an update; even in the field it only took about a minute to run. Then it was time to fire everything up, do the compass calibration (also a piece of cake, very similar to other drones I’ve flown), and get ready for Flight #1.

I’ve been using the Zephyr Flight Simulator for a while to gain familiarity with DJI drones, and it surprised the heck out of me how easy it was to take that virtual experience and apply it to flying the Spark. In fact, flying the Spark seemed easier than flying the simulator (both the Mavic Pro and Phantom 4 Pro).

Of course, I had a pretty decent site and a light breeze to help out. The site was the Chatfield State Park AMA flying field (run by the Jeffco Aeromodelers), which had a surprising amount of action going on for a weekday! To top it off, there was also “real” traffic in the form of a couple of small aircraft that were flying around the area.

Flight 1 was 1,609 feet, maximum altitude of 146 feet, 12 minutes, and all done in P mode. I’m not going to kick into Sport mode until I’ve got about an hour of flight time in. Once again, I want to make sure that I have a good feel for the handling of this little drone before I speed up the action.

Flight 2 was less distance (1,222 feet), but I brought it up to 394 feet — near the FAA max 400 foot altitude. Total flight time was 13 minutes. I got some great video looking down at the model aircraft airfield, watching planes take off and fly around.

In both cases, I manually chose RTH to bring the aircraft back to my landing spot, although manually flying the Spark wouldn’t have been an issue. RTH worked perfectly, and both flights landed right on the “H” target landing pad that I have.

My biggest concern was with the speed at which the gimbal moved — it’s kind of jerky, which tells me that it’s probably best to use the aircraft to move the camera and keep gimbal use to a minimum.

Noise was less of an issue than I thought it would be; if the Mavic Pro Platinum is quieter than this then it has to be almost impossible to hear from any distance.

One other question mark: for some reason, the first flight video saved to the micro-SD card, but it was unreadable. The two video segments from the second flight were fine. Any idea why the “001” video file would be goofed up?

Altogether, it was an excellent first flight experience and I look forward to gaining time and experience with this little bird.

Steve
 
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Congratz...it great to see you taking "baby steps" and you've obviously taken the time to do your homework.
 
One other question mark: for some reason, the first flight video saved to the micro-SD card, but it was unreadable. The two video segments from the second flight were fine. Any idea why the “001” video file would be goofed up?

Altogether, it was an excellent first flight experience and I look forward to gaining time and experience with this little bird.

Steve


Congrats on your first flight. As for your video loss...you need to stop recording before you shut off the aircraft. Could also be a formatting issue as was suggested, but I would think that would effect all the files.
 
Welcome aboard!!
You can slow down the gimbal speed in the settings.
Was the SDC formatted prior to first video?

D’oh - you’re right about the gimbal speed setting. Guess I’ll adjust that before the next outing. Thanks for pointing that out!

As for the SDC, it was formatted prior to the first video, which is why I’m perplexed about the “unreadable” first file. If it keeps happening I’ll contact DJI.
 
Congrats on your first flight. As for your video loss...you need to stop recording before you shut off the aircraft. Could also be a formatting issue as was suggested, but I would think that would effect all the files.

Hey, I think you hit on something here...

During the auto-landing onto my landing pad, I did NOT have the pegs that hold the pad in place pounded all the way into the ground. One of the props hit a peg during landing and shut down the motors. Since I didn’t get to tap the “stop record” button before shut down, that’s why the file was corrupted.

Thanks!!!
 
Don't be too hard on yourself. Reading manuals and watching videos are a good start, but firsthand experience can only be had.... firsthand.
In time, reactions become reflexes and answers to the situations that arise become automatic.
Plus, there are many, many details that are not in the manuals! Hence the fun of exploring!!

If the video problem persists, maybe try another SDC.
 
Welcome!

Take Off and Landing Checklists will get you into good 'habits'. Most of my 'procedures'
were taken from my Phantom's list. Until I started checklists, lost video was commonplace
for me too.

Taking things slow is a good idea. I've been flying UAVs for about three years, so my second time out...

I got my Spark about 3,300 ft out over a lake when it started losing altitude. 200 ft to about 50 ft..
No idea why, hand was off the left stick. It did respond to left stick input, got it back up to 200, and
hit RTH. That was my last flight over water with the Spark...not ever, but at least until the stripe in
my Jockey's wash out. Still don't know why the loss in altitude. No errors in the flight log...

A mystery.
 

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